Winging It

What's behind fashion's feather fixation?

March 14, 2007—Is the feather the new skull and crossbones? As any dedicated follower of fashion knows, obscure motifs have a habit of popping up simultaneously in different collections. For several designers, Spring 2007 was a season for the birds. Alexander McQueen embroidered a feather onto a jacket lapel, while Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela introduced feather-themed jewelry. New York–based Jurgen Oeltjenbruns utilized feathers inside and out—in both patterns (left) and the linings of his jackets. And then there's Michael Bastian, whose line debuted this spring with a feathered wing for a logo. "I think it's a cross between a house martin and a crow," says the designer, who also happens to have a stuffed falcon in his apartment. ("I'm not goth at all," he swears.) Oeltjenbruns's embroidered feather, meanwhile, is based on a real version he bought on an Indian reservation outside Tucson. "I just liked the way it looked," he explains, adding that the line it inspired "was really about weight and weightlessness."

Not being ornithologically inclined ourselves, we asked an expert to tell us what it all means. Feathers, it turns out, are a way of showing "melancholia," or so contends Van Dyk Lewis, who teaches fashion theory as a professor of human ecology at Cornell. "Sensitive males have begun to mourn for things past," he explains. Could be—or maybe they just got tired of skulls.